The trucking industry has long served as our country's major means of transporting raw materials, containers, finished products, commodities, etc. to all areas of the country and in particular to those areas not served by the railroads or the airlines. This is partially due to the fact that the trucking industry provides for more flexibility and efficiency in delivering direct to the shipping destination than is possible with the railroads and/or airlines.
However, due to increasing overhead costs in the trucking industry, such as the cost of gas, licenses, maintenance, regulation compliance, etc., the industry has had to take measures to further increase its efficiency. One approach to increase efficiency is to increase the size of the trailer so that more goods and materials can be hauled. However, in addition to practical limitations on the size of a trailer there are also various local, state and federal regulations which limit the size of trailers. Therefore once the trailers, particularly enclosed semitrailers, have been made as large as practically and legally allowable, ways must be looked at to maximize the use of available space on the inside of the semitrailer.
Many items are packaged in pallets which are loaded into the semitrailer by a forklift or the like. The density or the closeness with which pallets or for that matter any item can be loaded into a trailer has practical limitations. For example, when maneuvering pallets onto a trailer, the edges of the pallets will frequently make contact so as to interfere with the loading process. Furthermore, if the pallets are loaded too close to the inside walls of the trailer, tie down rings or D-rings as they are commonly known, will interfere. Also, the top rail structure of the semitrailer interconnecting the ceiling with the sidewalls projects outwardly to provide an obstruction on the inside of the trailer which prohibits efficient use of space.
Additionally, the door frame on the back end of the semitrailer also tends to obstruct or interfere with the loading process as it projects inwardly to provide an opening having a width less than that of the inside of the semitrailer.
Also critical to the efficient use of space, is the use of a loading pattern which will provide for maximum use of available space. Current loading methods, particularly in the case of pallets, do not provide for such efficient use of space.
For the above reasons and others, trailer space is often not efficiently utilized. It is critical to the industry in order for it to maintain its competitiveness and to provide the customer with continued efficient service that these obstacles preventing the efficient use of trailer space be solved. The present invention does indeed solve these problems and many others, thereby providing for more efficient use of available trailer space.